Grow Trigg is less than 100 signatures away from its goal of 1,800 signatures on a petition to bring the wet/dry issue in Trigg County to a vote, it was said at the group’s meeting last Wednesday evening at West Cadiz Park.

Grow Trigg President Ken Culwell said when they have 1,800 signatures they will submit their petition to the county. When the group met last Wednesday, Culwell said that they had 1,601 of the 1,660 signatures needed.

As of Monday, the group had roughtly 1,750 signatures, according to Grow Trigg Vice President Jan Culwell.

Ken Culwell said he’s shooting for 1,800 signatures, even though he doesn’t technically need that many, in case some of them aren’t valid. Examples of an invalid signature include those from people registered to vote in other counties or from people who aren’t registered to vote at all.

“We’ve been doing this for a while, and some of us are worn out, but we are so close, and we’re going to get there,” Culwell said.

During the meeting, Debby Spencer of We Make Things Happen (WMTH), a group that specializes in tourism research and marking as well as grant writing, spoke to the group via cell phone and loudspeaker.

Trigg Citizens Against Alcohol’s decision to print the names of those who have signed the petition once there are enough signatures “did more good for us than anybody can imagine,” Culwell said.

According to Spencer, when alcohol came to a vote in Crittenden County, one church posted the signatures on the front of the church and highlighted the names of church members, which Spencer said people were “furious about.”

The Grow Trigg president said there are three phases in the process, the first of which is gathering the signatures for the wet/dry petition, the second of which is the actual vote and the third is the alcohol laws that have to be passed by the Cadiz City Council and the Trigg County Fiscal Court.

Spencer said the group also worked on getting alcohol into Kuttawa, and, like many Grow Trigg members, said the goal is to help improve economic development. Many businesses, Spencer added, won’t move into areas that are dry.

It was said that while restaurants like Applebee’s probably won’t come into the area because it’s too small, if alcohol were to be legally served there might be a local restaurant to open that would serve alcohol, like Oasis in Kuttawa.

Tourism, one member said, is now the largest industry in Trigg County, and the ability to legally serve alcohol would drastically help the tourism industry.

“We are not a dry county, we are just an illegal wet county,” Jan Culwell. “Liquor is either being purchased illegally from within the county, or it is purchased outside the county and brought in.”

The county already has DUIs and public intoxication, added Culwell.

A few said they would volunteer to get signatures on July 3, and the group will be asking for signatures during the Cadiz Cruisers Cruise-In on Saturday.

The group will be meeting next at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, July 15, at the Lake Barkley State Resort Lodge.